Singing may help stroke victims regain speech

Gottfried Schlaug,an associate professor of neurology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre and Harvard Medical School,showed a video of a patient with a stroke lesion on the left side of the brain who was asked to recite the words of a birthday song.

The patient could not comply,and merely repeated the letters N and O. But when Schlaug asked him to sing the song while someone held the patient’s left hand and tapped it rhythmically,the words “happy birthday to you” came out clear as day.

“This patient has meaningless utterances when we ask him to say the words but as soon as we asked him to sing,he was able to speak the words,” Schlaug told reporters at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Another patient was taught to say,“I am thirsty” by singing,while another who suffered a large lesion on the left side of the brain and had tried various,ultimately unsuccessful therapies for several years to try to regain the power of speech was taught to say his address.